Publications

The steep, tectonically active terrain along the Central California (USA) coast is well known to produce deadly and destructive debris flows. However, the extent to which fire affects debris-flow susceptibility in this region is an open question. We documented the occurrence of postfire debris floods and flows following the landfall of a storm that delivered intense rainfall across...

The 2020–2023 southwestern Puerto Rico seismic sequence, still ongoing in 2023, is remarkable for its multiple‐fault rupture complexity and elevated aftershock productivity. We applied an automatic workflow to continuous data from 43 seismic stations in Puerto Rico to build an enhanced earthquake catalog with ∼180,000 events for the 3+ yr sequence from 28 December 2019 to 1 January 2023...

Earthquake risk associated with Quito, Ecuador; Cali, Colombia; and Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic is examined by generating a set of hypothetical earthquake scenarios considering seismic sources, recent seismicity, and major historical earthquakes recorded in the vicinity. In this study, particular focus is given to the development of earthquake scenarios for use in...

Wildfire alters the hydrologic cycle, with important implications for water supply and hazards including flooding and debris flows. In this study we use a combination of electrical resistivity and stable water isotope analyses to investigate the hydrologic response during storms in three catchments: one unburned and two burned during the 2020 Bobcat Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains...

Introduction The Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River Basin in the Western United States represent complex, interconnected systems that sustain a number of species, including tens of millions of humans. These systems face several challenges, including worsening drought, altered wildfire regimes, climate change, and the spread of invasive species. These factors can exacerbate one...

An analysis is made of geophysical records of the 24 March 1940, magnetic storm and related reports of interference on long-line communication and power systems across the contiguous United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada. Most long-line system interference occurred during local daytime, after the second of two storm sudden commencements and during the early part of the storm's...

Estimating the magnitude of historical earthquakes is crucial for assessing seismic hazard. Magnitudes of early‐instrumental earthquakes can be inferred using a combination of instrumental records, field observations, and the observed distribution of shaking intensity determined from macroseismic observations. For earthquakes before 1900, shaking intensity distributions often provide the...

No abstract available.

The Machine Learning Asset Aggregation of the Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (MLAAPDE) dataset is a labeled waveform archive designed to enable rapid development of machine learning (ML) models used in seismic monitoring operations. MLAAPDE consists of more than 5.1 million recordings of 120 s long three‐component broadband waveform data (raw counts) for P, Pn, Pg, S, Sn, and Sg...

When a notable earthquake occurs in the United States, a range of familiar real‐ and near‐real‐time products are produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), and made available via the ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog. For historical and early instrumental earthquakes, similar results and products are developed depending on data availability...

We use a combination of proxy records from a high-resolution analysis of sediments from Searsville Lake and adjacent Upper Lake Marsh and historical records to document over one and a half centuries of vegetation and socio-ecological change—relating to logging, agricultural land use change, dam construction, chemical applications, recreation, and other drivers—on the San Francisco...

Debris flows transport large quantities of water and granular material, such as sediment and wood, and this mixture can have devastating impacts on life and infrastructure. The proportion of large woody debris (LWD) incorporated into debris flows can be enhanced in forested areas recently burned by wildfire, because wood recruitment into channels accelerates in burned forests. In this...